The first step is to learn pronunciation and common, easy vocabulary. Good pronunciation will help people understand you, even if you only know a little. Bad pronunciation is hard to fix later. Numbers and Songs are the best first topic, since they are short and easy to memorize without distracting explanations. After a few repetitions you will learn all the numbers and start building the sounds of the language into your mouth muscles and brain. You will use them the rest of your life. .For English, this website has a range of songs and audio lessons, on numbers, comparisons, time, metric system, countries, alphabet, simple business questions, which you can download and practice. If you teach English, there are notes for teachers..For the following languages, you can start with numbers on LanguageGuide.org. They teach the numbers 0-102 or 0-21, depending on language.

For tonal languages like Chinese and many African languages, and pitch-accent languages like Japanese and Korean, spend $25-$40 to get Transparent which lets you speak into a microphone and shows a graph of the pitch of your voice as you say the tones, comparing you to a native speaker, so you can start the language well.

For 30 other languages, start with numbers 1-9 on Book2.de. (Recommendations here are honest. I do not take commissions or fees from any program reviewed.).If you want a language not on Book2, check theList of Languages to find reviews of self-teaching courses in hundreds of languages. The List rates self-teaching courses from 1 to 5 stars; more stars are given for programs which teach beginners good pronunciation and a lot of material quickly and well. If you want to analyze the list, you can download it as a spreadsheet in the free format of Open Office (.ods).

Many courses start with social conversation, but the Foreign Service Institute reports that social conversation is the hardest topic, with many rules to memorize. Therefore this site suggests you start with numbers, which are an easier route to good pronunciation and broad understanding..Then choose any other topics which interest you from Language Guide or Book2, Both are free.Language Guide is very good since it is visual, so you learn new words from native speakers with no distractions from your own language. They show pictures of food, technology, office items, government, geography, parts of the body, clothing, etc. You mouse over the pictures to hear each word, as often as you need to. Book2 has more words in more languages..If you can afford $25-40, try Transparent (in 76 languages), or at least a month of Pronunciator (in 60 languages). These listen when you speak into a headset or microphone, so they canscore your pronunciation. Transparent has the best graphs of your pronunciation and is especially helpful for tonal languages like Chinese. Pronunciator lets beginners learn from pictures, with no distractions in your own language, and they have more vocabulary, Pronunciatorconjugates 100 verbs, and it lets you choose topics which interest you. Transparent has some grammar, and you can keep using it without a monthly subscription.

If you want to learn through headphones without a computer, borrow a computer to download MP3 files from any of the courses (such asBook2) with downloadable audio, shown with ► or > in the list of "Best Courses". Then copy the MP3 files to your player, and you can use them when you want..Many websites have free introductory examples. Use them to hear different voices and speeds, and see which give you the best help at each stage in your learning. Try all the free sites and the free samples available from paid sites..You can start quickly with the best of these courses. Expect to study 600-2200 hours before you reach full fluency. If you studied 4 years of language at school, you had 400-480 hours of language class, only a start. Or in an hour per day for a month before a trip, you will spend 30 hours, enough to learn some friendly words for various situations before switching to English. You will still have a noticeable accent, but after 30 hours you can be understandable..The reviews here cover sites which teach numerous languages. See "All Languages" for links to other sites which teach only one or a few languages. Separate articles discuss common omissions from the courses, and the optimum time needed to learn different languages..Scoring Your Pronunciation.Several sites have computer analysis to score your pronunciation. This is a very valuable tool to improve your accent, giving feedback more patiently than any human..Talk to Native Speakers.Several sites help you find people who want to learn your language, and are native speakers of the language you want to learn. Talk to them regularly in each language, so you both practice..MP3 Learning away from a Computer.If you want to learn away from a computer (while driving, walking, etc.), this site's List of Language Courses shows which sites have downloadable MP3 or audio CDs in the language you want. Most cars since 2005 have plugs to connect an MP3 player or thumb drive to the car's stereo, or you can get adapters to connect to older cars. (A computer person can also convert MP3 files to an audio CD, and play it in a CD player.).Most audio files have pauses for you to repeat the words. Language Guide, Book2 and some others (shown in the List) lack pauses. Arguelles says it is better to use these recordings without pauses. He recommends speaking along with the native speaker, at about the same volume, so you can compare your voice to the native speaker (shadowing). People learn songs this way, so try it for languages. He says to walk with good posture while speaking so your voice is clear. At first you can only speak sporadically, until you hear phrases enough to say them with the native speaker.

Some lessons use a "backward build-up" as described by the US State Department: "learn the longer sentence by repeating small parts of the sentence, starting from the end and working toward the beginning.".Intermediate Learners.While this site is focused on beginners, the List of Language Courses identifies which language programs may be helpful to intermediate learners. Some programs are good for both beginners and intermediate: starting at the beginning and covering a lot of ground. Others are primarily for beginners, not covering enough to help intermediate learners. Some are too hard for beginners, but good once you learn the basics elsewhere.

You can use use Skype, Kakao, Voip on Android or iPhone, etc. to practice talking online with native speakers. The following sites help you find someone who (A) speaks the language you want and (B) wants to learn your language, so you can talk together first in one language, then the other. Both of you will practice at no cost:

After you find someone, you email to decide if you can both use Skype, Kakao or other free connection, set a time and start talking. As with any Internet contact, do not trust they are who they say they are. Do not tell them private information, such as when you will be away from home. Take your birth date and other personal information out of your Skype or Kakao profile. Another site has a good discussion of privacy for language learners and teachers.

Besides these well-organized sites, there are forums with long lists of people, not sorted by language, which are not as useful, though if you need a common language, you may find someone who just posted a request: ESL Teachers, Skype community, or Babelan.

_None of the courses reviewed here seems ideal. Click the Better Language Teaching tab in the top menu to see ideas about better possible approaches for the future..Comparative Results.It would be ideal if someone measured and compared the results of many programs. Apparently no one does.

Hundreds of state and local governments, thousands of universities, all teach foreign languages to millions of beginners every year, and any one of them would benefit from randomized comparisons of different teaching programs. On the other hand research by language teachers could appear biased by their experience with live teaching. Librarians might be a more neutral source of research in online courses, since many libraries offer these courses, and have an interest in what works best.

A few small studies have confirmed that learning Esperanto before an Asian or European language is faster than learning the target language by itself, on average. They give no guidance on which courses are best in either language.

The US government language teachers cited in the section on "Obstacles to Learning Languages" call for research on:

"Why is a class size of more than four too inefficient when we try to teach learners at really high levels of proficiency?

Why is an early grammatical overview so helpful to adult learners of languages like Russian or German?

Why is, for example, Estonian so much harder for English speakers to learn well than, say, Swahili, even though neither of them is related to English?

Why is it really so hard for an adult English reader to learn to read another writing system fluently?

.Advertised Courses.The heavily advertised Rosetta Stone mostly teaches listening and reading. Reviewers say its computer scoring of speech does not work well, so the main feedback on speaking seems to be a 50-minute online session after each lesson. In these sessions you talk with a "coach" and "2 other learners with a maximum of 4." Pimsleur has limited vocabulary and no feedback on pronunciation..Phonetics.Phonetics teaches how your mouth forms sounds, how sounds differ between languages, and how to change the habits of your mouth muscles to form new sounds. Phonetics is rarely taught to language learners, and you may find it helpful in creating a good accent in any new language. Arguelles mentions the example that T is formed by the tongue touching the top of the mouth; different languages have the tongue in slightly different places, and Hindi has 2 different T's, in 2 different places. Learning the principle may help you listen for and create the right T. He has an introductory video on phonetics principles..News.A large gap is the lack of teaching for news. Most courses are aimed at tourism, so they do not help people who want to understand foreign news broadcasts or read foreign papers..Dunwoody is the best for learning news vocabulary in 60 less common languages, with excerpts of news articles, vocabulary for those articles, and full translations..Pronunciator teaches words for numbers, time, cities, countries, geography, government, etc., which are useful for news. The purely audio proposal on this site at Wordlist recommends words in the same topics which can be taught by sound effects, with no explanations needed in another language..Business.An even more important gap is the lack of teaching for business. Most courses are aimed at tourism, so they do not help people who need basic business vocabulary for phone or VOIP.

This website has an English lesson for receptionists who want to help foreign callers reach the right person in their companies, and bosses who want to reach someone speaking their language: "Please let me talk to Dr. Annan," "Does someone speak Arabic or French?" and "The person who speaks French will return tomorrow." No other course or website offers those lessons for beginners.

As noted above, Pronunciator teaches words for numbers, time, cities, countries, geography, government, etc., which are useful for business and news; and the purely audio proposal on this site at Wordlist recommends words in the same topics which can be taught orally..Eurotalk has intermediate lessons for business in many languages. FSI teaches a few words for phone calls in a few languages, fairly late in the course. Busuu and Teach Yourself Business serve the need in English, French, Japanese, Mandarin and Spanish for people who already know the language well.

Scales and standard tests for language reinforce a bias for social, rather than business vocabulary..Multiple Voices.Each course uses only one or two native speakers. Beginners can still learn a variety of voices by listening to all the free course, and the free samples available from paid sites (listed in the Overview).

Intermediate students who can read in the new language, can practice pronunciation with songs in Arabic, Chinese and Russian. However in some languages, searching for the local translation of "song lyrics" on YouTube just gives songs in English..English Dialects.Courses do not show regional dialects for different parts of England or the US, which would help people traveling to particular regions, or wanting to understand the widest range of English-speakers. Scots is available from Kauderwelsch, and Celtic languages are available, but not Southern, Cockney, etc. By contrast there are books and CDs for regional French, German, Italian and Spanish..Slang.Every movie and most conversations, even among professionals, includes slang and mild oaths, yet even the mildest are rarely taught in courses. Beginners understand they have to ask for explanations in a conversation, but both sides can be embarrassed after the beginner asks the meaning of or misuses: "bloody," "vachement," "gay," "un truc," etc..Kauderwelsch has specific books teaching slang for Australia, Britain, Canada, Cuba, France, Germany (East and West), Hindi, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Quebec, Russia, Spain, Spanglish, Turkey, United States.

Several websites record you saying a word or sentence. Then they analyze it and give feedback in a score, and often a graph. The approach allows you to practice repeatedly and improve your accent. The programs work by comparing your recording to the model recording in the program, after adjusting for any basic difference in pitch.The programs vary widely in what they offer. Items 1 is best for a tonal language. items 1-3 are excellent for other languages, and all 3 are worth getting. Here is Transparent's graph of the falling then rising tone of yǔ in Mandarin, meaning "and."

Transparent gives the most detailed graphs to show how well you pronounce. Each time you say a word or phrase, you can see an overall score, and graphs on how the pitch, consonants, and vowels sounded. They offer 76 languages at low cost.

Passport to Languages / Learn to Speak has a simple pronunciation score in 6 languages, without detailed graphs, but they have more vocabulary than Transparent. Any of these first programs costs $20-$40 for permanent ownership of courses and scoring.

Pronunciator is $30 per month, has good scoring in 72 languages, and is easier to use than Transparent, though its graphs are not as detailed as Transparent's. While it does graph pitch, it is not detailed enough to help you learn tones in a tonal language like Chinese. It has at least as much vocabulary as Learn to Speak. It offers free samples of the pronunciation scoring, which most do not.

Two more are expensive and hard to use, according to reviews: Tellmemore and Rosettastone. Tellmemore (bought by Rosetta in 2014) scores pronunciation generously. I got undeservedly high scores in Spanish. A graph in old copies still available at retailers shows volume and an extra line for pitch to help you learn intonation. This would be good for Mandarin, which is one of the languages they teach, though at far higher cost than Transparent. Reviewers say that in sentences, you must speak each word separately to get a good score. Reviews say Rosetta's scoring of pronunciation does not work, and do not say that Rosetta has now picked up Tellmemore's graphs.

Babbel gives you too little feedback about pronunciation and then moves on to reading and writing. It scores good pronunciation on a scale 50-100, but gives you no score or feedback on poor pronunciation and goes on to the next screen before you get the pronunciation right. They let you say each word just once each time through a lesson.

Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition at the University of Minnesota keeps a list of many schools and universities in Canada and the USA which teach languages. It is a starting point if you want a class in person instead of a self-study course. Also you can find the books a class uses, and try those books.

On their website, type the name of the language and leave the other boxes blank, to see how many places teach the language you want. Or choose a state or province and see what languages are taught there.

There is no review here, since every class will be different. Please tell me if you know lists of courses in other parts of the world.